


16:  Sunday Morning

by light_source



Series: High Heat [16]
Category: Baseball RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-17
Updated: 2011-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:17:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_source/pseuds/light_source
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which an orange is eaten, among other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	16:  Sunday Morning

It’s a rare sunny midsummer morning in the Marina, and Zito’s already thrown open the French doors that open out from his second-floor bedroom onto the terrace. A potted Meyer lemon tree sits right outside the door, and the sweet scent of its blossoms wafts in on the cool early-morning air.

The room is sparingly but luxuriously furnished - a dark-red Persian rug, a tall Japanese screen, a single wing chair. At the center of it is all the extravagantly appointed, unmade bed. There’s a small blue-willow china plate on the nightstand, and an empty coffee cup.

When the two of them collapse on the bed, laughing, there’s a crackling noise under the duvet - sections of the newspaper that Zito’s been reading.

An orange pops out from under the covers and rolls off the edge of the bed onto the floor.

Tim reaches under the bedclothes and fishes out what turns out to be the _Examiner_ sports page. Without looking at it, he crumples it with one hand and pegs it into the corner behind the Japanese screen.

\- You gotta stop reading that stuff, Zeets. It’ll stunt your growth. Fuck, it’s even worse for you than coffee.

\- You see what my Sunday mornings are like, Zito says, - It’s pretty bleak now, my life outside baseball.

Their eyes meet, and there’s something guarded in Zito’s self-deprecating smile.

Zito leans over, hangs off the side of the bed and comes up with the errant orange.

\- I gotta call time, he says. - I just took a couple of Vikes and I’ve had three cups of coffee, and if I don’t eat something pretty soon my stomach’ll let me know about it.

Lincecum looks at him incredulously.

Zito winces a little as he digs his thumbnail into the orange peel.

\- Your shoulder? asks Tim.

Zito nods. - While I’m eating, he says, - maybe you can think of some way of entertaining yourself.

Zito settles back against the headboard, his knees drawn up. He’s peeling the orange in a workmanlike way, using his fingernail to score a spiral into the rind so it’ll come off in a single piece.

What’s surprising is that he's doing it entirely by feel. His eyes are fixed on Tim’s.

Lincecum sits up on the edge of the bed, one knee tucked underneath him. Slowly, as though he’s underwater, he unzips his sweatshirt and strips it away, one arm at a time, feeling his shoulders flex with the motion. He lets it fall to the carpet beside the bed.

Tim hasn’t forgotten their first night together, when it seems to him that Zito invented the idea of slow. He’s still learning, still trying to figure out how to hold time in his hands.

Tim’s wearing an olive-green Henley that ordinarily he’d just pull off, arms crossed, over his head. Now, though. He unfastens the placket carefully, each of the small buttons confounding his fingers, the muscles in his shoulders moving under his shirt. It falls open at the neck. It’s chilly in this room with the windows open, and his nipples tauten under the soft fabric.

The gaze between them doesn’t waver.

Once Zito’s finished loosening the orange from its peel, he uncoils the spiral and tosses it to the edge of the bed. The room’s spiked with the sharp fragrance of orange rind. With his thumbs he splits open the flesh of the orange, breaking it into halves. It crackles, and droplets of juice spray out onto his shirt and the sheets.

He tears off a single fat segment and eases it into his mouth, briefly closing his eyes in concentration, tasting.

Then he splits off another piece, raises his eyebrows, and points it at Tim, who leans forward on all fours to take it in his mouth. It’s satiny against his tongue, and succulent.

\- Sweet, says Zito.

Lincecum sighs, and his eyes narrow as he tastes the fruit. He rolls it around in his parched mouth, slowly crushing it with his tongue, and the juice fills his mouth and runs down the back of his throat.

Slowly he rises to his feet. Standing there at the foot of the bed, he begins unfastening the buckle on his belt. Then, taking his time, he unworks each riveted button on the fly of his jeans.

He’s incredibly aroused, and he can’t help touching himself as his hands brush against his hard-on. He knows his open fly allows Zito to see the way his cock’s straining against his briefs.

He unfastens the leather band of his watch and drops it to the floor. He slips off the silver rings he wears on his left thumb and forefinger, and then loosens the clasp of the braided leather band he wears on his right wrist, his left hand struggling a little to tease open the knot. When the circle finally falls apart into a slender line, he tucks it carefully into the front pocket of his jeans.

Zito lifts his chin, and his eyes narrow. Tim’s breath is coming deeply, the muscles in his chest powerful. His brow is rucked with desire. Zito can see the pulse beating hard at the side of his long neck.

The left-hander sits up briefly to drop the uneaten sections of the orange onto the blue-and-white china plate. Then he sinks back into his lounging position, his legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles, and his hand in his cotton drawstring pants, stroking. His breath grows ragged.

Tim breaks the gaze for the first time, looking a little down and away, his eyes searching and unfocused as though he’s forgotten something.

His eyes snap back to meet Zito’s with all the force of a blow.

With one hand, he takes the Henley by its hem and yanks it off over his head in a single hard movement. And now he’s standing there, barefoot and naked except for his jeans, half-opened, like a present that’s being slowly unwrapped.

\- I can’t believe I have to do this all by myself, says Lincecum. - Aren’t there union rules about this kind of stuff?

Zito’s there. He covers Tim’s mouth with his own, his tongue liquid and insistent, sharp and sweet, tasting of the orange he’s just eaten. And suddenly his hands, warm, fragrant with orange peel, are on Tim’s jaw, in his hair, and then on his ass, peeling Tim’s briefs and jeans down over his hips so that he can kick them free to the floor.

Finally naked, Tim has never felt so totally exposed, aroused, ready, so flush with desire. He feels like he’s burning up in spite of the morning cool.

As Zito falls onto his knees to take his hard cock in his mouth, Lincecum closes his eyes and throws his head back - he’s already so close. His hands in Zito’s hair, he fights back the urge to cry out - the French doors are wide open to the world - as the waves of pleasure wash over him, hauling him towards the brink.

And then Tim gives himself up entirely to the feel of Zito’s mouth on his cock and his hands on his skin. When he comes, his legs buckle and he sways, almost surrendering his balance. It’s as though only Zito’s mouth and his hands, steady and strong on his hips, are keeping him from being knocked off his feet.

//

\- Is that a scar or a birthmark? asks Zito.

They’re stretched out diagonally on the bed where they’ve come to rest, Tim on his stomach, propped up on his elbows. Zito’s lying next to him on his back, looking up at the underside of Tim’s jaw, an angle that seems both odd and beautiful to the left-hander. It’s the first time Zito’s noticed that Lincecum has a patch of coffee-with-milk colored skin on his right temple, just in front of his ear. Zito gently traces the outline of the mark with his finger.

\- Birthmark, says Lincecum. Not a scar. Unless you want to say it’s the scar I got from being born.

Zito smiles.

\- It’s so faint, he says, - you wouldn’t know it was there it unless you were looking for it.

\- Not like yours, says Lincecum. He turns onto his side, reaches over, and takes Zito’s pitching hand in his right hand. There’s a mole, a dark, velvety mark that runs over Barry’s wristbone to the inside of his wrist. It’s the shape and size of a streak of eye-black.

\- You better not commit any crimes, dude, says Tim. - This thing’s like one of those distinguishing marks they're always talking about on TV, and then the cops pin it on the guy who did it cause no one else has one.

Zito sighs.

\- They say birthmarks are the scars of your past life. They’re like signs on your body of how you got hurt, or how you died, before, says Zito. - I don’t know if I believe it.

\- Fuck, says Lincecum. - That explains mine. Somebody shot me in the head. Jesus. He rolls onto his back and covers his face with a pillow, rocking back and forth in mock histrionics.

Zito listens to his muffled groans for a minute and then pulls the pillow off. - It's just an old-wives’ tale, Timmy.

Lincecum, who’s not finished making fun of him, smacks his forehead.

\- Makes less sense for me, though, continues Zito, unfazed by Lincecum’s teasing. - In my case, I think it’s more like Achilles’s heel. In my case. You know, for a pitcher, a mark on the wrist is something.

\- Achilles - the guy in the Trojan wars? says Lincecum, whose memories of high-school mythology are pretty dim.

\- Yeah, that guy. The great warrior. Invincible except for that one thing, says Zito. - The tendon in the back of his heel. When he got hit there, it was all over for him.

Lincecum looks levelly at Zito for a few moments, considering. Then he takes Zito’s wrist in his hand and kisses the mole softly and slowly, his breath warm on the left-hander’s skin.

His joking tone has vanished.

\- It’s just a fucking old-wives’ tale, Barry, he says. - So stop thinking about it already.

//

In the kitchen, when Zito turns around with the plate of toast in his hand, Tim’s standing in front of the fridge. He's swigging the milk straight out of the cardboard carton, his head tipped back, a look of pure satisfaction on his face.

He catches Zito’s eye and puts down the carton, wiping his mouth with his fingers.

\- Sorry, he says. - I’m totally uncivilized.

Zito just looks at him, his face expressionless. Tim suddenly feels unsettled, as though he’s broken some important rule.

Zito closes his eyes and lets out a breath.

Then, as his eyes flicker open and come back into focus, he sets the plate of toast down on the granite counter. He takes the empty milk carton from Tim’s hand and tosses it over his shoulder into the sink.

He slips both arms around Tim, settling himself against the younger man’s back, and kisses the inside of his neck. Tim’s wearing nothing more than his jeans. Zito’s mouth on his neck, and his hands stroking his exposed skin, makes Tim arch his back, press his ass against Zito’s stiffening hard-on, wanting it. Again.

Tim twists around so their mouths can meet. He slips his hands up and under the hem of Zito’s shirt, feeling the cut of his abs, the soft velvet of the hair on his belly and chest.

When he hears feels Zito’s arms tighten around him, hears him moan with pleasure, something inside Tim gives. He stops worrying about what time it is, when they have to be at the yard, how he's gonna get out the next nine batters.

For now, the world inside his skin seems like enough.


End file.
